New Zealand's Lisa Carrington cemented her place as the world's fastest female canoe racer as she easily defended her K1 200 metres title at the World Championships in Milan.
The New Zealand kayaker Lisa Carrington in World Cup action. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
It's the first time Carrington has held two canoe sprint world titles, adding to the K1 500m crown she collected for the first time earlier in the meet.
Although her Polish rival Marta Walczykiewicz jumped out to a fast start in the final, Carrington soon drew level before going on to win in 40.060 seconds.
Walczykiewicz was second, 0.640secs back, with Portugal's Teresa Portela third in 41.248.
Carrington's two wins take her overall World Championship gold medal haul to five, meaning she overtakes Paul MacDonald as New Zealand's most successful World Championship canoe racer.
She joins MacDonald as the only New Zealander to win two golds at the same World Championship meet and she is the first women in 16 years - and only third in history - to hold both the 200m and 500m titles at the same time.
It was the 26-year-old's fourth consecutive world title over that distance in the K1 200m event.
Canoe Racing New Zealand boss Mark Weatherall paid tribute to the reigning Olympic champion.
"Lisa truly is worth her weight in gold, not just for the glittering titles she brings back to our shores but also the role modeling she provides," Weatherall said.
"She's such a focused, disciplined athlete and having her in a New Zealand team rubs off on the other athletes... she's a benchmark for all paddlers to aspire to."
A weary Carrington said it was a tough schedule to overcome, but she was rapt with her history-making performance.
"It was pretty tough having four days of racing and racing the 500 [K1 500m] which was a really, a really big challenge to rise up and do that event and then today to do the 200 [K1 200m] which was also really hard to back up two big races."
"But it's been a really good weekend and I'm really happy with how things have gone."
The women's K4 crew of Jaimee Lovett, Caitlin Ryan, Aimee Fisher and Kayla Imrie finished ninth in their 'A' final.
The result means the Olympic qualifying standard has been met and a New Zealand women's K4 boat is likely to compete in Rio de Janeiro for the first time.